My journey thru life as a Husband, Father and Roman Catholic with a special affinity for all things Franciscan..

What now?

Can a Mother forget her infant? That’s a question I have asked myself a lot over the past few weeks. Confused? Perhaps I need to start over. I am adopted, and while I really have had a good life, it has always been on my mind; who am I? Who was/is my birth mother? Do I look like her? Do we have the same values? Loves? It’s a series of unanswered questions that only an adopted child can fully understand the depth and scope of, and it is a series of questions that a lot of us never see answered.

Now, to be honest, it never really bothered me that much that I was adopted. I figure if I had not been adopted, my life would have taken a drastic turn, and I’d have grown up somewhere else, been someone else, etc. I would have never met my wife, or had the two outstanding sons I am proud to call my children, it would have all been….wrong. But still, the nagging question was always there….Who am I really?

Events transpired over the years that led me closer and closer still to that unanswered question, and eventually, I have been led to a reunion with the woman who gave life to me. But that’s not the point of this. After our initial conversation, I had been waiting to hear from her. I knew it came as a big shock, 52 years later I pop back into her life, a lot to fathom and ponder, right? But I so wanted to ask her questions, learn my medical history and who my family was. It may sound cold, but as an adoptee? I’m sorry, these things come into your mind. There is no denying them.

But I digress; as I waited for her to maybe call me back, I became despondent. I thought maybe she really didn’t care what happened to me, perhaps I was just the product of a bad memory, and as these thoughts crept into my peripheral vision, I became depressed.This past Wednesday night found me at the Marian Mission at St. Marks, and as I listened to what the priest was talking about, it became clear to me, that what my birth mother may or may not harbor for me, what she may be running away from, none of it truly matters, because I am loved by God, and even though (to quote James O Barr) “Mother is the name of God on the hearts and lips of all children”, there is a greater love still, and I already have that in my life.

I started this post off to vent about my anxiety in this situation, to make myself feel better, and so I went looking for a quote about mothers, and found Isaiah 49:15;

I think that I was meant to see this, for more than one reason, and I think it has more than one meaning. We can be loved by our mothers, our fathers and our whole family, but the love of God is more precious than anything else we may experience.Moreover, it is our responsibility to show that love to others -everyone- if we are to be truly worthy of Gods love. That means the little homeless guy outside of Chick Fil-A with the little dog, the girl sitting on a sidewalk bench crying by herself, it means everyone. We can’t just look at people from afar and feel bad for them, we have to be involved, we have to care about what happens to them -everyone- or we are not worthy of Gods love. God loves every last one of us -everyone- and if we can’t, won’t or don’t do the same, are we truly worthy of his affections?

Intentions:

For the Holy Father, for all religious,especially the Franciscan Capuchins,the Poor Clares,the SFO and the Knights of Columbus .For my Mother In Law, My Dad & Mom,for all my family, for the prayers in my own book of intentions & my parish book of intentions,for all the missing & exploited children, the lonely & depressed, the homeless, the addicted, the dead, the dying and those that will die today. For Roadie,Jay, Mark,Shanon, Dixie Lee Carney, and all my other dearly departed friends.